August 22, 2014 6:36pm EDTAugust 22, 2014 11:22am EDTA faulty agreement that favored the Orioles created regional TV power MASN. The Nationals want more money, producing a dispute that will be decided in court.MLB's MASN agreement favors Peter Angelos and the Orioles and leaves the Nationals cold.(AP Photos)

The Washington Nationals were once the Montreal Expos. It seems fitting a television agreement that marked the beginning of the end of baseball in Montreal in the early 1980s is similar to a battle being waged between the Nationals and the Baltimore Orioles.

The battleground now is the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, known as MASN. Owned by both the Orioles and Nationals, this partnership was created when the Expos moved to Washington after the 2004 season.

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When the Nationals arrived, the Orioles' regional television network included an area from Harrisburg, Pa., to Charlotte, N.C., and included Washington. Peter Angelos, who has owned the Orioles since 1993, didn't welcome baseball back to Washington. MLB did its best to appease Angelos, by allowing the Orioles to create MASN a regional sports cable network that would offer both Orioles and Nationals games.

When MASN launched in 2005, MLB owned the Nationals and paid the Orioles $75 million for 10 percent of MASN. MLB's interest in MASN was included in $450 million Nationals sale to the Lerner family that was completed in July 2006.

Both the Orioles and Nationals receive $29 million for local TV rights, but that's where any semblance of a partnership ends. The Orioles own 86 percent of MASN, the Nationals the remaining 14 percent. Fourteen of the current 30 MLB franchises own some, if not all, of local cable networks that carry their games. The Nationals' 14 percent MASN ownership is 13th among the 14 teams with ownership in a regional broadcaster. Only the Texas Rangers' 10 percent in FoxSports Southwest is lower.

Cable sports networks are generating millions of dollars in revenue. Along with Orioles and Nationals games, MASN is the cable home of the Baltimore Ravens, Georgetown Hoyas basketball, George Mason Patriots basketball, Big East basketball and football, Big South basketball and football, Colonial Athletic Association basketball, UNC Wilmington Seahawks basketball and the BB&T Classic basketball tournament. MASN offers 520 live sports events annually.

The bottom line — when the network proceeds are divvied up, the Orioles walk away with 86 percent, the Nationals 14 percent, along with the $29 million each receive for its rights.

Seeking a bigger bang for their buck, the Nationals tried to walk away from the agreement in 2012 or get more for their rights.

With the teams unable to settle, the dispute will be determined by New York Supreme Court Judge Lawrence K. Marks. Monday, Marks issued an extension in an injunction preventing Major League Baseball from forcing the Orioles to pay the Nationals an additional $20 million annually.

On June 30, an MLB arbitration panel determined the Orioles owed the Nationals $20 million annually. The issue is in a New York court after the Orioles questioned the panel's objectivity.

What is taking place was inevitable from the day Major League Baseball, led by commissioner Bud Selig, agreed to appease Angelos by creating a regional television agreement that overwhelming favored Angelos and the Orioles.

The irony of what is taking place won't be lost on Montreal fans. Expos games were broadcast across Canada between 1969 and 1984, including the first six years the Toronto Blue Jays existed.

During the 1984 season the Blue Jays began lobbying MLB commissioner Bowie Kuhn. The Blue Jays didn't wanted Expos games broadcast in southern Ontario. Close to 30 percent of Canada's population, a little more than 9 million people, live in the area for which the Blue Jays wanted exclusive rights.

Kuhn offered the Expos the right to broadcast 15 games in southern Ontario, a decision Peter Ueberroth reaffirmed when he replaced Kuhn in 1985. Without access to southern Ontario, the Expos were unable to generate significant media rights. That was the beginning of the end for baseball in Montreal.

The Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area population is 9.3 million, similar to the territory MLB took away from the Expos in 1985. MLB used the rationale the Orioles had the rights to the Baltimore-Washington corridor for 23 years before the Nationals arrived in 2005.

Using the same logic denying the Expos the most important Canadian region in 1985 makes little sense if you follow baseball's rationale for giving Angelos a dream regional sports network partnership. If the Expos had been allowed to broadcast games in southern Ontario, baseball would be alive and well in Montreal.

The Nationals must own their rights and not be in a partnership with the Orioles. The teams are playing in the same geographical region, competing for the corporate and fan support in an area that also is home to two NFL teams, an NBA and an NHL team.

Regional sports networks experienced tremendous financial growth in the past 0 years. The agreement MLB and Angelos reached in 2004 made little sense then. It doesn't work now.

Angelos likely knows this. If Angelos were to do what's right, and in the best interest of both the Nationals and Orioles, he would agree to end his partnership with the Nationals. The Orioles could then renegotiate with the Nationals (not likely); or the Nationals could find a new cable home (likely).

If that were to take place Angelos would own 100 percent of MASN, which would retain the rights to more than 360 live events annually. MASN has been in the marketplace for a decade, a tremendous competitive advantage.

Before it concludes this war between the Orioles and Nationals will get nasty.

Howard Bloom is a Sporting News contributor and the long-time publisher of Sports Business News. He can be reached at hbloom@sportsbusinessnews.com.